


Little Bit of Disregard

by iconoclastic04



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: 5+1 Things, Emo Danny Fenton, Gen, Ghostly Artifacts, Nonhuman Danny Fenton, Not a reveal fic, There is no plot, ghost speak, gross misappropriation of high school chemistry labs, i invent several teachers and a museum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29383737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iconoclastic04/pseuds/iconoclastic04
Summary: Danny Fenton was always kind of odd.(Four times Danny Fenton was kind of ghostly, and one time Danny Phantom was kind of human, but probably not in the way you think.)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 230





	Little Bit of Disregard

**Author's Note:**

> This would have been a 5+1 but I didn't want to write the fifth one.
> 
> Title from "Faint" by Linkin Park.
> 
> Oh, yeah—Lake Baikal is real, but everything else I made up and has no purposeful resemblance to any real place or object.

Amity Park was weird. Everyone who lived there knew that. Sometimes roads led to different places than usual. The only flowers that grew in the wild withered as soon as someone touched them. The wind swirled in inconsistent eddies that whispered in your ear. It wasn’t uncommon to see a glowing green grocery cart pushing itself down the aisles at the store. Outsiders complained that they felt like they were always being watched. The Amity Park natives just rolled their eyes whenever they heard that line. Obviously, they were being watched. Liminal spaces were just like that.

Despite the oddities of the city, most of the people who lived there were pretty ordinary. Sure, ghosts played on the playgrounds and went to the movies, but for the most part, Amity Park was home to a group of nice, solid humans. No one suspected that a ghost would secretly be masquerading as a human.

Maybe that’s why it wasn’t until his junior year of high school that Danny Fenton started being noticed as kind of weird.

The entirety of Casper High was already intimately aware that he was, well, a bit of a loser. His parents wore brightly colored jumpsuits and drove a tank around, his only friends were shunned by the rest of the school, and Danny himself was a perpetually anxious mess with chronic insomnia and a paralyzing phobia of ghosts. He was weird, but not the kind of weird that necessitated noticing. In fact, he seemed strangely content to be shoved into lockers every other day.

Dash noticed it first—the smile playing at the corner of his lips as he slammed Danny against the cold metal in the locker room. “You think this is funny, Fenturd?” he hissed. “I’ll give you something to laugh about!” The bang of the locker slamming shut reverberated throughout the empty room. There, he thought smugly, dusting off his hands as he sauntered to lunch. Nobody had gym for at least another hour, so Fenturd would be good and stuck until then. Plenty of time to think about his actions.

And somehow, by the time Dash got to the cafeteria, Fenton was already sitting there with his goth girlfriend and his lame-ass boyfriend. What the hell? Dash blinked once, twice, but he was still sitting there, facing away from the door--and then Fenton turned his head slowly, met Dash’s eyes, and fucking winked. That little shit.

Before he could go over there and pummel some answers out of him, however, Paulina latched onto his arm, babbling a mile a minute about something completely unintelligible and dragging him over to the usual table. Stupefied, Dash let her. There were five minutes left in the period when he finally spoke. “Hey,” he said, pitching his voice low. “Do you think there’s something...weird….about Fenton?”

Paulina, Star, and Kwan stared at him. “Uh, duh,” Paulina said. “He’s a complete weirdo.” Star vigorously nodded her assent.

“No, I’m serious,” Dash said. “Something weirder than just being a loser.” 

Paulina pursed her lips. “I don’t know, Dash. Honestly, I haven’t really thought about him since he pantsed himself in front of me freshman year.”

The table laughed. “That was pretty funny,” Kwan said. “You think he still wears those fuck-ugly boxers?”

The bell rings. They move on.

——————————-

They move on, as it happens, to ectochem lab. Ectochem is one of those subjects that is unbearably difficult and only made enjoyable by the fact that it’s so fucking cool. It’s also apparently one of those subjects that they don’t have outside Amity Park, which is weird. Dash mentioned it to one of his cousins once, and had to spend fifteen minutes explaining what, exactly ectoplasm was, and why it was so important to know how to handle it. Hah, weird. It’s like she didn’t have to follow the “If You See It, Scoop It” Harmless Ectoplasm Cleanup Mandate. The streets would be completely filled with that green gunk otherwise.

Ectochem was a lab day today, so even chronically-absent Fenton was in attendance. For someone who ran off and hid every time a ghost attacked the school, he seemed pretty comfortable handling the stuff that ghosts were literally made of. Which Dash supposes he could understand. As long as you didn’t ingest, inhale, or touch the ectoplasm directly, it was pretty fun to play with. He snapped on his gloves and goggles. 

Today’s lab was testing the various forms that ectoplasm took under different temperatures. The teacher, Mr. Wilson, passed out beakers containing ectoplasm that had been stored at various temperatures. They were to take as many measurements of each sample as they could, write down their observations, and compare the results. Dash and Kwan huddled in front of the hood as they scribbled down observations of the ectoplasm’s weight, density, and pH. They weren’t allowed to combine it with any other substances or expose it to electromagnetic currents due to its high reactivity. Even these simple “exposure” labs had met with plenty of protest from the PTA, and it took Mayor Masters’ passing of the Harmless Ectoplasm Cleanup Mandate to finally flip the vote.

“All right, everybody, please dispose of your samples in the ectohazardous waste bin and return to your seats for a brief discussion,” Mr. Wilson announced after about forty minutes. “That means you, too, Mr. Fenton, Mr. Foley. I don’t care if you’re not done, you had plenty of time to complete the lab. Now throw your materials away and sit back down.”

Fenton and Foley were the only ones who hadn’t finished disposing of their ectoplasm samples, even though they’d both already taken off their gloves and goggles. Fenton walked up to the ectohazard bin at the front of the class, carelessly holding his beaker in his bare hands. The neon green liquid inside sloshed dangerously; it must have been the “hot” ectoplasm—a searing eight degrees Celsius. 

The whole class watched as, almost in slow motion, Danny’s foot hit a table leg and he lurched forward. He caught himself before he hit the ground, but ectoplasm slopped over the edge of the beaker, splashing onto his hand. Mr. Wilson let out a startled yelp, but Danny only hummed noncommittally before dumping the remaining contents into the bin. He shifted the beaker to his other hand, raised the ectoplasm-splattered one to his mouth, and licked the green goop off his fingers.

Wait. What?

The entire class burst into an uproar. Dash and Kwan openly stared at Fenton as he turned around, blinking at the shouts that permeated the room. 

“Mr. Fenton! What on earth are you doing?” Mr. Wilson yelled. “Ectoplasm is a incredibly dangerous material! We have to—” He grabbed the emergency respirator from its throne (his desk, after it was used yesterday). 

“What? Oh,” Fenton said, still blinking dumbly. “The ectoplasm? It’s fine, I’m exposed from all my parents’ inventions. I probably eat more than this every night at dinner.”

Mr. Wilson looked like he was about to have a heart attack. “Dinner?!” 

“Yeah, my parents tend to bring up a lot of ectocontamination from the lab,” Fenton replied, as if he wasn’t referencing such an egregious breach of safety protocols that it was a wonder he was still breathing. “The Thanksgiving turkey came to life one time, and we all ate it anyway. Well, after Dad killed it again.” He paused. “Plus, what with the portal and all, there’s enough ambient ectoenergy in the house that you basically can’t avoid absorbing some.” He wandered back over to his seat, ignoring the even louder outbreak that accompanied the revelation that Danny Fenton ate raw ectoplasm on the daily.

Dash elbowed Kwan. “See?” he hissed. “There’s no way that’s normal.”

Kwan was inclined to agree. “Paulina and Star will never believe this.”

“Please stay after class for a discussion on lab safety, Mr. Fenton,” Mr. Wilson said in a very strangled-sounding voice.

———————————

The rest of the week passed without incident; at least, without any abnormal incidents. Ghosts attacked, but nobody was hurt, and even the property damage was kept to a minimum. Paulina swooned over Phantom, Dash shoved Fenton in a locker and didn’t see him again for at least thirty minutes. Life was normal, maybe even good.

It was Star who brought up Fenton’s weirdness next. “So, Fenton,” she began during one of their after-school gossip sessions at the Nasty Burger—not that Dash would ever admit that it was a gossip session. It was just an, er, exchange of information about which nerds were looking particularly pummel-able and who had changed their hair. “I have algebra II with him, right? He kept talking to freaky Foley and manic Manson during class, but it wasn’t in English.”

“What, like, Spanish?” Paulina asked, delicately chomping on a fry. “He tried to learn it in middle school to impress me, but his accent was horrendous.” 

“No, it was some language I’d never heard, but it sounded super freaky,” Star replied. “And—get this—I don’t think he even realized he was doing it. He got called on and he just, fucking, answered with this weird sound. I don’t even know how to describe it. It was like, clicking and hissing and moaning all at the same time. I literally got goosebumps just listening to him. Mrs. Abrams was so freaked out she just immediately picked someone else.”

“What the fuck,” Kwan said.

“Yeah, I’ll be honest, I didn’t think he was smart enough to learn another language,” Paulina said. “Hey! There he is!”

Star, who had long since perfected the art of turning around to look at someone without making it look like she was turning around specifically to look at them, glanced back to see that, indeed, Fenton and his friends had just walked through the grease-stained glass doors and were heading towards the counter. The A-listers watched as Fenton stepped up to order and promptly rattled off a series of incomprehensible syllables that definitely should not have been possible for human vocal cords to make.

The cashier paled. Fenton cocked his head at her and let out another garbled moan.

“Did it just get colder in here?” Paulina whispered, rubbing her arms. Next to her, Star nodded silently, eyes fixed on the scene in front of her.

Sam elbowed Danny, who glanced at her, confused. She hissed something under her breath and Danny’s eyes widened before he turned back to the cashier. “Shit, sorry! Uh, can I get a number 3 combo with extra fries?” he asked, in English. The cashier stared at him for a minute longer before punching in the order as fast as she could. Foley stepped up to order as Sam dragged Danny to a booth a few tables away, muttering under her breath the whole time.

Straining her ears, Star just barely caught the end of her rant. “...stop doing that, Danny!” she was saying. “One day someone’s gonna recognize the language and you’re going to have to answer a lot of questions you don’t want to answer!”

“...not a big deal, Sam,” Fenton replied. “Not even my parents recognize Ghost Speak.”

Ghost Speak? Star mouthed incredulously. 

“Maybe he learned it from his parents,” Kwan mumbled.

Star shook her head. “No, he said…” She trailed off when Danny suddenly swept his gaze up to meet hers. His eyes seemed to almost glow even under the cheap fluorescents. The din of the Nasty Burger faded. In her peripherals, her friends’ forms wavered and fuzzed over. She felt transfixed, rooted to the spot. 

“Star?” Paulina asked. “Star!” She shook her arm roughly.

Star wrenched her eyes away from Danny and turned to Paulina. “Huh?” she said, still feeling not quite tethered to this plane of existence.

“Are you okay? You just got really quiet and started staring into space,” Paulina said.

Star looked down at her half-eaten burger and fries. “Yeah, I just...maybe we should leave this alone.” She shoved her tray towards the boys. “Dash, Kwan, you want?”

Paulina flicked her eyes over to the booth where Danny and Sam were sitting, watching as Tucker joined them with what looked like at least a dozen burgers. (Something was wrong with that kid, in a completely different way than whatever was wrong with Danny). “Maybe,” she said after several long moments. Neither of them said anything, letting Dash and Kwan natter about football plays, until the telltale sound of crashing, panicked screaming, and maniacal laughter heralded a ghost attack, and Danny sprinted out of the restaurant. 

“It would be nice to have a Nasty Burger hangout without a ghost attack for once,” Star overheard Manson saying to Foley, and, for once, she agreed with her.

——————————————-

“All right, class, today we’ll be doing something a bit different,” Mr. Lancer announced at the start of fourth period. “My nephew Lewis works for a very prestigious museum in New York City, and has kindly agreed to give us a guest lecture on ghostly artifacts this class period!”

Star looked over at Paulina and rolled her eyes. A lecture on ghosts from someone who wasn’t even from Amity Park was almost worse than a regular English class.

Mr. Lancer gestured to a thin, reedy man with thick-framed glasses, who waved awkwardly at the crowd of unimpressed-looking teenagers. “Uh, hello, everybody, my name is Lewis Lancer, and I am the collections manager for the Museum of Supernatural History in the Big Apple!”

Lewis paused, waiting for any impressed oohs and aahs. Nobody responded. Clearing his throat, he continued, “We mostly deal in haunted objects: possessed dolls, Ouija boards, Dybbuk boxes, and the like. We even have a few terracotta soldiers from the Emperor’s mausoleum in Shaanxi, China. However, we have been expanding our collection to include rare artifacts that used to belong to ghosts. Will tells me that you have been exposed to a few ghostly artifacts already—namely, the Crown of Fire and Ring of Rage, formerly in the possession of Pariah Dark. Unfortunately, while we’d love to have these in our collection, nobody has seen them since Amity Park was abducted a few years ago. Their current whereabouts are unknown.

“So, instead, I’m going to talk to you about something you haven’t seen up close! Will, if you would?” He gestured to the blank projector screen. 

“Oh, of course,” Mr. Lancer said, scrambling to pull up a generic-looking powerpoint. Lewis pulled out a handheld clicker and gave it a few violent taps. 

Paulina elbowed Star. “Do you think this is even going to be something real?” she whispered. “I mean, he didn’t even mention that cursed amulet that Danny gave me during freshman year…”

Star pursed her lips. “Hey, how did Danny even get that thing in the first place?”

Mr. Lancer cleared his throat loudly before Paulina could respond. “Ladies,” he said. They straightened up and fixed their eyes back on the board.

“This,” Lewis said proudly, “is the Gauntlet of Xk’gh’cc.” He clicked the remote loudly until the projector showed a blurry picture of a clunky-looking metal glove. “It has been mentioned extensively throughout history, even before the nomadic humans settled down, almost entirely in conjunction with mentions of ‘strange, green creatures’ who we now believe to be ghosts. Although, the extraterrestrial crowd has given us quite a run for our money, heheh.”

He paused again for laughter. Nobody laughed.

“Anyway, it was believed to be a tipping point in several ghostly territory disputes, as well as the war for the crown of Lhaiph. Its powers are said to be astronomical in the hands of a skilled wielder. Supposedly a true king could use it to manipulate ectoplasm, generate pure energy, and even control ghosts. It disappeared from the annals of history thousands of years ago, and hope of ever finding it again was almost lost, until…” He clicked to the next slide, showing a rocky coast with water so dark it was almost black.

“Only thirty years ago, a large spike of ectoenergy was observed coming from beneath the surface of Lake Baikal. The gauntlet was recovered from the depths by a dedicated and highly specialized team of marine biologists, geologists, and paranormal researchers only thirty years ago. Much of the time since then has been dedicated to ensuring its authenticity, but we anticipate its reveal to the general public to occur within the next five years.”

A hand shot up at the back of the class. Clearly delighted to have any sort of questions asked, Lewis pointed. “Yes, you with the, uh—lipstick.”

Star knew without looking that it was Sam Manson. She and Paulina shared a brief snicker.

“Sorry, did you say you’re displaying this dangerous ghostly artifact to the public?” Sam asked. “How the hell is that a good idea? That’s just begging for someone—human or ghost—to steal it and wreak havoc. Plus the rest of that stuff, it can’t be safe to keep in one place.”

Lewis smiled indulgently at her. “Well, miss, every item in the collection is stored under the highest security. We have 24/7 surveillance cameras and a security task force trained in the paranormal. Additionally, the entire storage facility is lined with pure iron and rowan wood, both known for their ghost-repelling properties.”

Sam made a frustrated sounding noise. “Iron and rowan? You’re depending on folk stories to protect stuff that could be used to destroy the world as we know it.”

“Yeah!” someone chimed in. Star was pretty sure it was Tucker. “You don’t even have ghost shields?”

“Children, please,” said Mr. Lancer.

“I assure you, that level of precaution is entirely unnecessary. The average ghost can’t even be within a few feet of pure iron,” Lewis said. “And, as I mentioned earlier, our staff is outfitted with ectoblasters in case of emergency.”

“Yes, but—!”

Another, weary-sounding voice interrupted her. “It’s fine, Sam,” Danny Fenton said, staring at something in his lap. “It’s not even real.”

Lewis blinked. “What?” He was echoed by most of the class.

“Yeah,” Danny said, yawning. “It’s a fake. The real gauntlet of Xk’gh’cc was destroyed over 5,000 years ago as one of the first acts of King Jeroptian’s reign over the Ghost Zone. He decided it was too dangerous to exist because of its role in the siege of the War of the Black Cliffs and the Famine of Gibraltar.”

The class burst into uproar. Danny started a bit and looked up from his phone, as if only just now realizing that he’d been speaking out loud.

Lewis frowned at him. “Yes, you’re very funny, ha-ha. A team of experts has verified this gauntlet’s authenticity.”

Danny just shrugged. “Well, I guess they weren’t very good experts.”

Star watched as one of Lewis’ eyes twitched comically.

“Daniel,” Mr. Lancer said, pressing his hand to his forehead. “Please.”

“What?” Danny asked. “I’m just saying. This is, like, Ghost Zone 101.”

“Do you need to go sit in the principal’s office for the rest of this class, Mr. Fenton?” Mr. Lancer said, glaring.

Danny sighed, glancing at Sam and Tucker before looking back down at his phone. “Fine, whatever. Believe what you want.” He propped his chin up on his hand and stared at Lewis. 

Lewis tried valiantly to power through the rest of his slides, but Danny, Sam, and Tucker were clearly texting each other, and the A-listers began to amuse themselves by drawing pictures of Lancer and Lewis wearing magic amulets that turned them into angry dragons wearing obscenely short skirts. Eventually, Lancer announced “discussion time,” although Star could tell he probably wanted to call it “sit-down-and-shut-the-fuck-up time,” and the class ended without any more unwanted input from the resident Fenton.

——————————-

An indeterminate amount of time later, the “Gauntlet Incident” was all but forgotten—although Danny’s weird full-body twitch when Paulina called it that within his earshot was not. Paulina, Star, Dash, and Kwan were wandering around downtown Amity, trying to think of something to do that wasn’t sitting at the Nasty Burger, when a high-pitched scream and a crash signaled the start of a ghost attack. A few seconds later, a terrified-looking woman sprinted past them, clutching her purse to her chest as maniacal laughter rose in the distance.

Dash looked at his friends. “Want to go check it out?”

Paulina nodded eagerly. “I bet Phantom’s there!”

The four trotted off towards the acrid smell of burnt ectoplasm. When they arrived at the scene of the crime, it was just in time to witness Phantom get slammed into the concrete by an amorphous green blob with way too many teeth. 

“Go ghost boy! You can do it!” Paulina cheered, jumping up and down and wriggling like an overexcited puppy.

Phantom didn’t respond, instead just peeling himself off the pavement and launching back into the air. He twisted to deliver a sucker punch to the ghost’s face—faces? It wasn’t super clear. The ghost yowled and struck back, sending Phantom hurtling through the air until he brought himself to a stop. 

The A-listers watched Phantom and the tooth ghost trade blows for several minutes. “It’s taking a while, isn’t it?” Kwan mused. “And, hey— is he wearing earbuds?”

Paulina, Star, and Dash squinted at the ghost boy. “Oh my god, he totally is,” Star said.

“Is that a good idea?” Dash asked.

He was interrupted by Manson and Foley running up to the edge of the wreckage. “Danny!” Sam shouted. “Hey, Danny!” She waved something chunky and metal in the air. 

Phantom gave no sign that he had heard her, separating his legs from his torso to avoid an ectoblast from the ghost and springing back towards it with his fist glowing green.

“Shit,” Sam muttered. “Of all the days to forget the thermos….”

“Danny!” Tucker shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. “THERMOS!”

Phantom still ignored them.

“I think he’s wearing earbuds,” Kwan said helpfully.

Sam and Tucker looked over like they had only just noticed the cluster of A-listers at the edge of the fight. “What?” Sam asked. 

“Yeah, look,” Dash said, pointing. Sure enough, there was something nestled into Phantom’s ear.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” said Sam. “During a fight?”

“It doesn’t seem like a great idea,” Tucker added. “Is he winning, at least?” 

Before Dash or Kwan could answer, the tooth ghost nailed Phantom with a blast of ecto-energy that sent him flying between the two groups of teenagers, hitting the asphalt and skidding for a good twenty feet.

“Intangibility, dumbass!” Tucker yelled at him. Phantom groaned weakly, waving a hand at him but otherwise making no effort to get up. 

“Oh no,” Star whimpered, glancing back at the multiple ravenous mouths that seemed to swirl menacingly towards them. “We’re fucked.”

Sam cocked an eyebrow at her. “Are we?” She flipped open the lid of the thermos, pointed it at the tooth ghost, and pushed a button on the side. A beam of bright blue light shot out, latching onto the ghost immediately and sucking it into the container. She snapped the lid shut and clicked a latch over it before giving it a shake. “Ghost boy over there’s only hurt cause he’s too stupid to get out of the way when something punches at him.”

“Or to turn intangible before he hits the pavement,” Tucker added helpfully. “We should probably make sure he’s okay, though.”

“Oh, my love!” Paullina cried, rushing over to him and kneeling on the pavement. She grasped one cold hand in hers, pulling it to her chest.

Phantom let out a pained-sounding wheeze and blinked blearily up at her. “Pau...lina?”

“Yes, yes, it’s me, Phantom! Oh, I was so worried about you! I don’t know what I would do if you were seriously injured!” She appeared to be close to tears. 

Phantom’s eyes flickered over the assorted crowd of Dash, Kwan, Star, Sam, and Tucker. “Hang on,” he said, and sat up, tugging an earbud out of his ear before dropping it to the pavement. “Ow.”

Even from several feet away, they could hear the harsh guitar blaring out of the earbud. “No wonder you couldn’t hear us,” Tucker said. “I’m surprised your eardrums are still intact.”

“With how hard I hit the ground, I’m not so sure they are,” Phantom groaned, rubbing his head with the hand that Paulina wasn’t performing her best limpet impression on. “I’m just glad they didn’t break.”

Sam gave him an odd look as she clipped the thermos to her belt loop. “Danny—I mean, Phantom—were you listening to Linkin Park while you fought that ghost?” 

Danny just groaned.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://robotbeowulf.tumblr.com)


End file.
